Printer cartridges are typically designed to provide the consumer a certain number of print copies before the toner or ink is exhausted. The total number of prints varies depending on the type, quality and density of the print provided by the printer. After all of the toner or ink is spent, the cartridges are either thrown away or recycled.
An emerging industry has developed that deals with the recycling of printer cartridges. Typically, the OEM (Original Equipment Manufactured) cartridge is recycled by a cartridge remanufacturer, who receives spent printer cartridges and refurbishes them. The toner cartridge remanufacturing process typically entails disassembling, cleaning, refurbishing and reassembling the cartridge.
A typical OEM toner cartridge consists of an assembled plastic housing which may have several sections. During the remanufacturing process, the different sections of the toner cartridge may be separated allowing the remanufacturer to access the various internal components that may need to be replaced. Some exemplary components that may need to be replaced include but are not limited to a developer roller, fuser wand, wiper blades, OPC (organic photo conductor) drum and the like. After the components are replaced, a seal may be placed over a toner reservoir prior to reassembling the toner cartridge. After toner is placed into the reassembled toner cartridge, the seal keeps the toner from escaping the toner reservoir during the shipment of the toner cartridge. The seal may be broken by the end consumer prior to placing the toner cartridge into the printer. Breaking the seal allows toner to leave the toner reservoir and be presented to the various components within the toner cartridge. As part of the printing process, toner is transferred from the toner reservoir to the developer roller, onto the OPC drum, onto the print media and is melted onto the media.
Commonly, seals currently used by OEM toner cartridge manufacturers and toner cartridge remanufacturers may be comprised of separate items that have to be assembled. Typically, these seals may pull strips that extend away from the toner cartridge and include a separate pull tab. The pull tab allows the consumer greater leverage when pulling the pull strip thus breaking the seal. However, it may be advantageous to have a unitarily constructed seal that includes an integrated pull tab.